A quiet half hour passed; and the first visitor, a stranger to the servants, appeared at the cottage-gate.  He was a middle-aged man, and he had no wish to disturb Mr. Hardyman.  “I will wait in the grounds,” he said, “and trouble nobody.”  The middle-aged man, who expressed himself in these modest terms, was Robert Moody.

Five minutes later, a carriage drove up to the gate.  An elderly lady got out of it, followed by a fat white Scotch terrier, who growled at every stranger within his reach.  It is needless to introduce Lady Lydiard and Tommie.

Informed that Mr. Hardyman was at the stables, Lady Lydiard gave the servant her card.  “Take that to your master, and say I won’t detain him five minutes.”  With these words, her Ladyship sauntered into the grounds.  She looked about her with observant eyes; not only noticing the tent which had been set up on the grass to accommodate the expected guests, but entering it, and looking at the waiters who were engaged in placing the luncheon on the table.  Returning to the outer world, she next remarked that Mr. Hardyman’s lawn was in very bad order.  Barren sun-dried patches, and little holes and crevices opened here and there by the action of the summer heat, announced that the lawn, like everything else at the farm, had been neglected, in the exclusive attention paid to the claims of the horses.  Reaching a shrubbery which bounded one side of the grounds next, her Ladyship became aware of a man slowly approaching her, to all appearance absorbed in thought.  The man drew a little nearer.  She lifted her glasses to her eyes and recognized—­Moody.

No embarrassment was produced on either side by this unexpected meeting.  Lady Lydiard had, not long since, sent to ask her former steward to visit her; regretting, in her warm-hearted way, the terms on which they had separated, and wishing to atone for the harsh language that had escaped her at their parting interview.  In the friendly talk which followed the reconciliation, Lady Lydiard not only heard the news of Moody’s pecuniary inheritance—­but, noticing the change in his appearance for the worse, contrived to extract from him the confession of his ill-starred passion for Isabel.  To discover him now, after all that he had acknowledged, walking about the grounds at Hardyman’s farm, took her Ladyship completely by surprise.  “Good Heavens!” she exclaimed, in her loudest tones, “what are you doing here?”

“You mentioned Mr. Hardyman’s garden party, my Lady, when I had the honor of waiting on you,” Moody answered.  “Thinking over it afterward, it seemed the fittest occasion I could find for making a little wedding present to Miss Isabel.  Is there any harm in my asking Mr. Hardyman to let me put the present on her plate, so that she may see it when she sits down to luncheon?  If your Ladyship thinks so, I will go away directly, and send the gift by post.”

Lady Lydiard looked at him attentively.  “You don’t despise the girl,” she asked, “for selling herself for rank and money?  I do—­I can tell you!”